For the first time in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, archaeologists have found a sarcophagus of a woman who does not belong to the royal family of the Pharaohs. According to the inscriptions in the tomb, it is Nehemes-Bastet, a singer who was hired 3000 years ago to sing hymns to the god Amun.
The sarcophagus, made of a dark wood, was found in a tomb about six feet below the desert surface. The tomb is only a few square meters in size. At the foot of the sarcophagus, the archaeologists found a wooden tomb tablet with colorful hieroglyphs. The inscriptions state that the singer is the daughter of a priest from Karnak. Located near Luxor in the Valley of the Kings, Karnak is known as the largest and most important temple complex of ancient Egypt.
The find is special because all known tombs in the Valley of the Kings belong to pharaohs from the New Kingdom (ca. 1570 - 1070 BC) and their immediate family. In ancient Egypt, pharaohs were seen as personifications of Ra, the supreme sun god. Because of this special position, pharaohs, but also their immediate family, loved ones and even their pets, were mummified after their death and buried in tombs.
The archaeologists expect to open the sarcophagus in the coming days. Egyptologists will examine the mummy, which they are expected to find in the sarcophagus, using X-ray equipment.
Turning time
According to Suzanne Bickel, an Egyptologist at the University of Basel, the style of the wooden pillar and sarcophagus suggests that the mummy of Nehemes-Bastet dates to the ninth century BC. It dates back to the Twenty-second Dynasty, when Libyan kings ruled Egypt. Bickel writes that in a report of the excavations in the Valley of the Kings.
The Twenty-second Egyptian Dynasty falls into the troubled Third Intermediate Period that followed the collapse of the New Kingdom. Several wars and rulers followed each other at a relatively rapid pace. Although the country was ruled by Libyan kings, the chief priests of the Temple of Karnak maintained an independent and significant position. This enabled them to make use of the cemeteries in the Valley of the Kings.
However, the tomb itself is much older, according to Bickel. The space is said to have been carved out during the eighteenth dynasty, during the fifteenth century BC. During the Eighteenth Dynasty, famous pharaohs such as Akhenaten, Hatshepsut and Tutankhamun ruled Egypt. Archaeologists are considering the possibility that an even older grave will be found beneath the layer of rubble on which the sarcophagus rests.
Permission
As early as January 25, 2011, Suzanne Bickel and her team discovered an unknown cavity beneath the surface near Luxor in the Valley of the Kings. On that very day, revolutionary uprisings began in Cairo and the surrounding area. The new discovery was closed tightly with an iron door. During the recent unrest in Egypt, archaeological work has been delayed because the Ministry of Antiquities has not issued new permits. The cavity could only be examined after a renewed permission on January 6, 2012.